Category: transportation

Spring 2014: Day One – Flying High and Climbing Higher

La Tour EiffelOur trip started fairly easily. I was traveling with my friend Rasa, having decided I was going to go to Disneyland Paris (which is exactly the same as EuroDisney, but not allowed to be called that anymore) and she had decided she wanted to accompany me. It worked out nicely since going to Disneyland by yourself just sucks. So we did a little bit of planning and plotting and had decided that the three full days we were going to be in France (we flew in on Monday afternoon and flew out early in the morning on Friday) would be spent at the two Disney parks (Disneyland and Disney Studios) and so bought three for two day tickets and were ready to go. Of course, since this was going to be Rasa’s first time in France she asked if we could somehow see the Eiffel Tower, so we figured we’d do that on Monday, after we got to town. With all this in mind, we headed out early to catch a train to Vilnius, where our plane left from.

Continue reading “Spring 2014: Day One – Flying High and Climbing Higher” →

Two Crazy People in Tallinn

IMG_1735So a few weeks ago my friend Monika asked me if I wanted to go to Tallinn with her. She’s a tour guide and has been to Tallinn a number of times but always with a group and there were some things she wanted to check out for herself, some places she wanted to find so she could guide people there on her tours. And there was a Christmas Market, which is always fun. Continue reading “Two Crazy People in Tallinn” →

Spirits of Ireland – Day nine in Dublin

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAThis is where that little surprise comes in. I was all set to call it quits after Liverpool and was resigned to a long train ride back to Edinburgh but Jennifer had other plans. She had done her research (she’s good at that) and discovered we could fly from Liverpool to Dublin, spend the day in Ireland and then fly back to Edinburgh that night with plenty of time to spare to make the 6:30am flight back to Kaunas. All of a sudden our trip became 4 cities, 3 countries, 2 plays and 1 knight! I was beyond stoked! Continue reading “Spirits of Ireland – Day nine in Dublin” →

Eight Days a Week – Day eight in Liverpool

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAAs long as we were in the north of England, I had figured we might as well see Liverpool. When we were planning this trip, all sorts of possibilities were presenting themselves but time, cost and feasibility had narrowed things down to flying in and out of Edinburgh with a trip to Manchester and Liverpool thrown in. This was okay by me. I’d never been to any of these places while Jennifer had been to Liverpool and Edinburgh but it was years ago. Jennifer had also take care of planning the latter half of the trip and so she had booked us on an early morning train to Liverpool, about an hour or so away. The idea being to make the most of our day since odds are, we were going to spend most of monday on a train back to Edinburgh for my 6:30am flight back to Kaunas on Tuesday. Continue reading “Eight Days a Week – Day eight in Liverpool” →

The Scottish (cos)Play – Day seven in Manchester

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAThis was the day we were waiting for. Today was Macbeth Day. We started the day all special days should be started… by sleeping late.

We had decided that Manchester was really much more about the theatre than any other touristy sites so there was no rush to get up and hit the day running as there was every other day of the trip. So instead, we just languished. We enjoyed the comfort of the hotel room, sleeping until we wanted to wake up. It was glorious. We also took this opportunity to deal with travel details for the next few days. I had received a surprise but that will come in time. Continue reading “The Scottish (cos)Play – Day seven in Manchester” →

The Borderlands – Day two in Scotland

James and the Wee Red BusLeaving the hostel early enough to not only make our 9am bus tour, but to find breakfast and the place to meet our bus tour wasn’t as easy as it sounds. Not that leaving was hard, nor getting up in time (I don’t sleep late anyway, thank you, Laika) but just figuring out what to do for food and where the bus stop was accounted for a slight bit of frustration. In the end, we opted for jumping in to a local supermarket (Sainsbury, for those playing UK Location Bingo) and grabbing some eat on the go stuff and then figuring out that our tour pick-up point was actually quite near Calton Hill… and we were a little early so we decided to eat up on the hill with the view of the nearby body of water which is called the “Firth of Forth” (try saying that three times fast!). Firth means estuary and Forth is the bay which leads out to the ocean so that’s what we were looking at before heading back down and joining our group. Continue reading “The Borderlands – Day two in Scotland” →

My mother has a 46 year old son

Birthday BoysMy birthday celebration really started on Friday when I saw some friends and got some nice gifts and cards and a visit from my friend Anna from Budapest. I also saw Pacific Rim, but I slept through a good deal of it so no review just yet.

Saturday, the actual anniversary of my birth, was a blast. Continue reading “My mother has a 46 year old son” →

Barcelona Day One

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERALike all trips I’ve been taking recently, this one started with a preliminary trip. This is the hazard of not having a car (or any vehicle, really). So this trip to Barcelona started out with a train ride to Vilnius and then a second train from the Vilnius train station to the airport. Not a big deal and the Vilnius airport is fairly small and easy to navigate so there weren’t any problems until it came time to actually board the plane. Continue reading “Barcelona Day One” →

Brasov and Bran Castle

Castle DraculaBeing this close to Transylvania, a trip to see Dracula’s Castle was a mandatory experience – I even read the book to prepare! That said, I really didn’t want or need to spend a lot of time in Romania so I decided to make it a bonzai trip… and I enlisted Erika and Sanyi, two fellow English teachers, to go along with me! What we decided to do was catch the overnight train to Brasov, then spend the day exploring the city and the castle then catch the overnight train back. Continue reading “Brasov and Bran Castle” →

Chateau de Chillon

ChillionSwitzerland, while nice, is, as I’ve said, incredibly expensive. And since I’m not sue I’ll ever be back here, I wanted to see this castle which is about 45km from Geneva, just outside the Jazz Festival home Montreux. It’s also where Byron wrote a fairly famous poem, “The Prisoner of Chillon.” about Francois de Bonivard. Evidently this trip was becoming a fair bit about Lord Byron. Continue reading “Chateau de Chillon” →

Geneva

Geneva skylineThis entry actually starts on Tuesday, November 2nd with a lot of travel. Malev, the Hungarian Airline, is okay. Nothing fancy but then there doesn’t need to be. I made my flight (not as easy as it sounds, I got confused at the gate – there’s a difference between Gate 22 and Gate 22A – and they took me into a special room to make the power cord of my computer wasn’t a bomb) and made it back to Budapest easily enough. I even felt like a native as I was able to help some newly landed folks find their way to their destinations. Continue reading “Geneva” →

To be or not to be… In Helsingor

Why go to Helsingor? Well, for one, everyone’s doing it and we all know how I am about peer pressure! But really, the more important reason, is that even the castle in Helsingor, which is actually called Kronborg, is real, but it’s much more well know for a fictional tale set there, that of Hamlet, by one W. Shakespeare. Continue reading “To be or not to be… In Helsingor” →

Stockholm… The final showdown

I can’t believe I forgot the best quote from my evening with Emanuel! At some point in the conversation, when we were talking about various cities and I had made mention of the fact that Los Angeles wanted your soul and Las Vegas wanted your money, he said San Francisco (where he was from) wanted your heterosexuality. It didn’t take a lot of detective work on my part to very quickly deduce that he was, in fact, gay. Continue reading “Stockholm… The final showdown” →

Day 2 in Stockholm – All about the animals…

The morning came very early on my second day in Stockholm, not because I was ready to wake up, but because there were no blinds in the room. But that’s okay. The amazingly expensive hostel I was in came complete with a breakfast so I was able to go downstairs and have a nice, healthy meal of meat and bread and cheese and hardboiled eggs before going off to activate my Stockholm Card. Continue reading “Day 2 in Stockholm – All about the animals…” →

Greetings from Stockholm…

Pulling into Stockholm I was exhausted and excited. And an hour ahead. We gained an hour somewhere in the waterway between here and Finland. Pretty cool if you ask me. So I’d prebooked my Hostel, as I am want to do, and, armed with directions, I set about to find the place. Of course, the directions they proffer are from the central train station, not from the Ferry port, so I first need to make my way there. Continue reading “Greetings from Stockholm…” →